Strategy Decisions
50+ recent decisions
Accept Google previously-identified-CVEs contract wording - it is not what they really want, and their own language becomes scope leverage later
Nov 3, 2026 · strategy · medium80% confidence
In the GDC contract thread with Kelly Hall and Bjorn, Peter accepted Google wording that limits CIQ obligations to a previously identified list of CVEs. He noted Google wants to control regression scope, but as worded they will not automatically get upstream changes, and because of embargoes many upstream changes are unlabeled CVE fixes. He chose to let Google learn that and ask for something different later, and said it will be leverage: future change requests can be answered as not in the previously identified list, per their own language.
People: Kelly Hall, Bjorn Hovland
GDC targeted-CVE builds - what fits the existing build machinery ships Monday, everything else is quoted work, slips are attributed to the customer constraint, and a rough estimate is enough
Nov 3, 2026 · strategy · high84% confidence
Across 10/30 to 11/2 Peter applied one rule to Tissa asks for 1.16/1.17/1.18 kernels. Default: last week build plus CVE 9999, available Monday because it fits existing machinery. A March-kernel branch with only 9999 is a new branch with no build path or testing, so it gets an ETA, not a commitment. 1.18 by Monday holds only if CIQ can keep rebasing on upstream. He pressed Google to decide that day and asked why they would want one new CVE but not the 37 old ones. On 10/31 he directed that any date change on the sheet state it is caused by Google not wanting the latest driver, and that communicated dates be reinforced. On 11/2 he refused a two-day turnaround by email (dates stay 11/16, one could be pulled in and the other slid) and told Nathan and Justin the message is weeks not days, about 3 weeks, and a swag is sufficient - no more planning effort than that.
People: Tissa Senevirathne, Nathan Blackham, Justin Haynes
Datacenter business needs its own team and deals that pay now - stop signing engineers up for work far outside their remit
Nov 3, 2026 · strategy · high74% confidence
In a DM to Bjorn framed for the C-suite, Peter said the team is burned out on IRIS (network still down, someone has to go back on site, half a dozen people on daily calls, Wolfgang pulled off Fuzzball work), that this is unsustainable with IRIS alone and Grenoble arrives in 8-9 weeks. Position: deals must get CIQ paid now rather than just opening future doors, CIQ must be very careful signing people up for work far outside their remit, and if CIQ is really in the datacenter business a whole missing team needs to exist today.
People: Bjorn Hovland, Ryan Smith, Greg Kurtzer
Keep Stratum out of the Core42 IRIS deployment - take the win we have; Stratum can go into Grenoble
Nov 3, 2026 · strategy · high79% confidence
Adam Jackson proposed adding Stratum to the Core42 IRIS deal. Peter refused: deploy what is already agreed, do not reopen the contract, and let Stratum go into Grenoble when that happens.
People: Adam Jackson, Bjorn Hovland
2027 engineering budget - current reqs plus only two unallocated heads, one org-wide gathering every six months, cloud spend modeled as growth-tied
Oct 30, 2026 · strategy · medium72% confidence
In the 10/23 2027 budget walkthrough with Chris Baek and Kelly Wall, Peter set the assumptions: open reqs plus the five or six planned engineering, hardware and AI hires, then only two unallocated TBD heads (around April and August/September); an additional IT head comes out of that buffer only if Steve wins the case with Peter, which he has not yet. Ongoing market adjustments for underpaid engineers are independent of any Series B true-up; model engineering cost up about 10 percent. Travel allows one gathering of Peter whole org every six months, not separate six-month gatherings per sub-org - CIQ chose to be remote. Cloud modeled at about 75K per month H1 and 85K H2, since it is customer traffic on Portal and Depot and only rises with revenue. Computer spend 150K; AI budget raised.
People: Chris Baek, Kelly Wall, Steve Wallace
Tim Pepper - push now for an RESF board or leadership role, paid not volunteer, with Peter carrying it to Greg and Bjorn
Oct 30, 2026 · strategy · medium74% confidence
A long-standing RESF director is stepping off the board. In the 10/28 sync with Tim, Peter said that director had been the adult in the room who built much of the RESF-CIQ relationship over six to nine months and that he feels exposed without him. Tim said a board role is something he could do. Peter said it is not a volunteer seat - CIQ pays people to serve there - and that he would broach it with Greg and Bjorn and carry that ball forward. He also asked Tim to send Xander a no-harm-no-foul note with an open door.
People: Tim Pepper, Greg Kurtzer, Bjorn Hovland
Sensitive Decision
GDC contract redline - air-gapped scope only, FIPS module is priced (75K plus lab fee) or dropped, 14-day critical/high SLA with the clock starting when a patch is identified upstream
Oct 30, 2026 · strategy · medium74% confidence
On 10/27 Peter reviewed the GDC amendment line by line with Kelly and resolved Nathan comments: scope narrowed to deployed in GDC air-gapped environments (not connected GDC); the FIPS loadable module is new work and not at no additional cost - 75K plus lab fee, which forces the 250K expense cap up, or Google drops it or it moves to the next round; accepted a 14-day SLA for critical and high CVEs with the clock starting when a patch is identified upstream (per Peter conversation with Tissa), with a communication plan owed before a patch exists - a mitigation plan and a communication are the same thing; dropped dev-build language and did not care about support duration for the build Google is leaving.
People: Kelly Hall, Nathan Blackham
GDC new ask after landing Anthropic - write down what we believe, parrot it back, give an ETA assuming funded, and use it to win the added 300K without slowing the base contract
Oct 30, 2026 · strategy · high75% confidence
On 10/29-10/30 Tissa came back with a larger ask after Google landed a big opportunity (Anthropic). Peter directed Nathan and Justin: before spending any time, write down what CIQ believes is true and send it to Tissa to validate - (1) what is delivered Monday, (2) the additional ask parroted back to confirm version and build, (3) when CIQ could have it assuming it is funded. Tissa is working to get CIQ about 300K more, taking GDC toward 1M plus royalties next year, and this must not slow signature of the existing contract. Peter relayed Tissa request that CIQ engineers stop saying that is not in the contract and say we will talk to Pete instead. On 10/30 he asked for the CIQ ETA column filled, including future releases, to talk through any gap between desire and capability.
People: Nathan Blackham, Justin Haynes, Tissa Senevirathne, Kelly Hall
GDC full kernel with IBT off is not just sign the kmod - say no unless it fits, do not reopen the contract, Peter and Kelly own the Tissa conversation
Oct 30, 2026 · strategy · high91% confidence
On 10/29, with the GDC contract about to be signed, Google asked for a 6.18 full kernel with IBT off for the following week. Peter framed it in #google-partnership-governance: the ask pushes CIQ from just sign our kmod into supporting kernel development, which CIQ told Google it must staff up for and is still hiring for; it falls back into the CIQ needs to do the live patching work bucket and cannot be delivered in a couple of days. If Justin path works, fine; otherwise the answer is no. He told Nathan he did not need to manage the contract, stopped the engineering thread (Let us spend no more time on this and Kelly and I will talk to Tissa), and refused to change the order of anything or reopen any question while the contract was being signed. He emailed and then called Tissa; Tissa dropped the full-kernel requirement, and Peter confirmed in writing the plan is the minimal kernel with IBT disabled for next week, with Kelly, Nathan and Justin on the thread.
People: Nathan Blackham, Kelly Hall, Justin Haynes, Tissa Senevirathne
Apptainer - hold Bjorn to zero engineering hours and let things fall on the floor so the maintenance cost becomes visible
Oct 23, 2026 · strategy · medium78% confidence
Peter has an agreement with Bjorn that Apptainer costs zero engineering hours. In the 10/22 Wolford 1:1, after hearing the PIC team still spends some time on it, Peter told Wolford to be aggressive about spending zero time, said he expects Apptainer to fall apart a bit and that is okay, because Bjorn needs to hear that these things do not stay functional and maintained without engineering focus. He said the same to Nathan the same day and created a todo for Bjorn noting that Apptainer is taking engineering time.
People: Bjorn Hovland, Chris Wolford, Nathan Blackham
Peter personally drives NVIDIA to commit, to Google, that it will support CIQ-built RLC on NVIDIA hardware
Oct 23, 2026 · strategy · high82% confidence
At the 10/22 GDC roadmap meeting Google disclosed NVIDIA had put in writing that Google must reproduce NVIDIA-hardware bugs on RHEL before NVIDIA will look at them. Peter took it on personally: called Scott Hara (NVIDIA) that evening - NVIDIA engineering to align, a three-way NDA, and a statement to Google that NVIDIA will work with both CIQ and Google; emailed Tissa (Google) and shaped Google question to include joint support given CIQ custom kernel work for Google; forwarded to Scott asking for a positive written response; asked Greg to be ready to make the case to NVIDIA. In the same meeting he told Google CIQ can support their roadmap for the next year line item by line item, in response to Google assembling its own senior kernel team.
People: Scott Hara, Tissa Senevirathne, Greg Kurtzer, Bjorn Hovland
Core42 - hold to the SOW: stock Kubernetes plus Fuzzball before Oct 31, no CIQ-installed CozyStack, technical pushback routes to Peter
Oct 23, 2026 · strategy · high80% confidence
On 10/23 Core42 took Fuzzball out of the Oct 31 plan (no Fuzzball before deployment, look at it together later). Peter refused to let CIQ become a pure system integrator. As soon as the network is up, CIQ installs Ascender and Fuzzball; if Kubernetes is not there, CIQ installs stock K8s for Fuzzball to sit on, without CozyStack, and Core42 can add CozyStack later. Any pushback from Maxim or Sergei gets the scripted SOW answer (after consultation with Core42 engineering we have been told to follow the SOW; Fuzzball is an integral part of the CIQ stack and does not affect any other Kubernetes offering), and technical pushback routes to Peter. Builds on the 10/22 Ryan 1:1 where Peter made stock K8s plus Fuzzball plan A. The stock-K8s-then-Fuzzball shape was proposed by Bjorn; Peter adopted it and owns the engineering plan and the pushback routing.
People: Bjorn Hovland, Adam Jackson, Ryan Smith, Wolfgang Resch, Chris Wolford
Get CIQ onto the embargoed security lists, Linux first - treat the absence as our failing; give upstream hours from the Stratum engineers to wherever Tim directs, and let Tim move without waiting on Peter
Oct 21, 2026 · strategy · medium72% confidence
In the 10/21 Tim Pepper 1:1 Peter set three things. CIQ getting onto embargoed security lists is a goal - Linux matters more to him than Kubernetes - and he views not being admitted as a failing on CIQ side to be fixed by building community trust; Tim brokers the conversations. Weekly hours from both Stratum/Kubernetes engineers (one hired, one req open) go to upstream work wherever Tim directs. And Tim moves things forward without waiting on Peter: invite him to meetings rather than reschedule around him, and Peter will tell his team and Marketing to jump when Tim asks. The upstream/downstream development training Tim plans will include the Linux org.
People: Tim Pepper, Chris Wolford, Lindsay Aamodt, Nathan Blackham, Justin Haynes
Justin org becomes the platform team - and for more than Linux; deep Linux knowledge is needed to build the platform, not to run it
Oct 21, 2026 · strategy · medium62% confidence
Justin described the shape he is building toward: his team runs the services, automations and connections so the trains just run, and Nathan team owns what goes through the pipes; Nathan dislikes it because he wants everyone to know Linux deeply. Peter sided with the platform shape: everyone knowing Linux is valuable but not central to success, and Justin will end up being a platform team for far more than Linux - Kubernetes, Fuzzball, Apptainer.
People: Justin Haynes, Nathan Blackham
Justin - now is the cheapest time to break things; bring every go-faster option to Peter and Bjorn, even the ones you would veto
Oct 21, 2026 · strategy · medium72% confidence
On the 8.10, 9.2 and 10 product-identity changes Brady wants, Peter told Justin there will never be a time with fewer customers, so do it now and do not wait on Peter reading the risk doc. Justin standing order to his team is to surface go-faster-by-breaking options and veto the too-big ones; Peter changed the filter: options Justin would veto still come to Peter and Bjorn, flagged as too big.
People: Justin Haynes, Bjorn Hovland, Brady Dibble
Core42 Kubernetes - never let anyone at Core42/G42 say CIQ cannot do Kubernetes; ask questions only, route Stratum to Bjorn
Oct 21, 2026 · strategy · high84% confidence
After a Core42 email raised Kubernetes questions, Peter set the posture: answer with capability (extensive K8s experience, a K8s offering in a month, able to configure or work with any K8s cluster); present Stratum as an option while saying off-the-shelf K8s is fine if required; do not tell Core42 what is unsupported, ask what they are trying to accomplish; stand nothing up; no engineer-to-engineer resolution - anything Stratum-shaped goes to Bjorn and their customer-facing people. On 10/21 he applied it by asking Sergei for a call with the CIQ Kubernetes team to learn whether they want CozyStack and why.
People: Ryan Smith, Bjorn Hovland, Brian Dawson, Chris Wolford, Wolfgang Resch, Nathan Blackham
Desktop - all investment behind one opinionated desktop; stock upstream GNOME ships only as a zero-investment bridge for 10.2 and Everfox
Oct 21, 2026 · strategy · high81% confidence
Peter told Greg (10/20) and then Bjorn and Brady (10/21) that CIQ will not build two opinionated, fantastic desktops. GNOME ships straight from upstream for 10.2 and the January Everfox timeframe, with only the tweaks needed for the Everfox required applications - nothing that changes functionality and nothing that needs separate support. All desktop investment goes into one opinionated desktop; Cosmic is only a placeholder, and which desktop it is belongs to Product. End state is dropping GNOME or pointing at upstream unchanged.
People: Greg Kurtzer, Bjorn Hovland, Brady Dibble, Nathan Blackham
Greg research team - no management role for someone who will not take a defined role; a research function exists only with Greg running it
Oct 16, 2026 · strategy · medium66% confidence
Greg proposed bringing someone in to lead a research team. Peter objected on two counts: the person note said they did not want a very defined role, and Peter has a hard time putting someone like that in any management position; and while he favors a research team under Greg, he does not favor CIQ funding a research function in general - its value is as an arm that brings Greg projects to the point of evaluation, and CIQ is small enough not to need that function without Greg running it. Greg later reframed the ask as a hands-on principal-engineer-level person who takes his direction.
People: Greg Kurtzer, Bjorn Hovland
Desktop - enterprise GNOME and an opinionated AI desktop ship together, not as separate SKUs; AI is non-negotiable; open 1-2 desktop reqs now
Oct 16, 2026 · strategy · high72% confidence
In the 10/13 Nathan 1:1, on top of Nathan base plan, Peter set conditions: the enterprise GNOME desktop and an opinionated AI desktop ship together rather than as separate SKUs, with a sandbox where CIQ can hold an opinion. AI is required - if System76 will not accept AI-written code into Cosmic, that only blocks upstreaming, not the work, and the base need not be Cosmic. Timing is loose (end of December or January). Open one or two desktop reqs now. Builds on his 10/4 note that a basic GNOME desktop plus an advanced agentic one could be differentiating.
People: Nathan Blackham, Greg Kurtzer, Bjorn Hovland
Core42 is a CIQ Engineering engagement, not Support - Ryan on point, Peter, Wolford and Nathan stay on the calls
Oct 16, 2026 · strategy · high75% confidence
Peter classified the Core42 deployment as CIQ engineering handling rather than Support, with Ryan Smith taking point. Peter, Chris Wolford and Nathan stay on the calls. Ryan on-call rotation was judged necessary but not sufficient - senior engineering (Peter, Nathan, sometimes Ryan, often Adam) must be on the Core42 calls when available. Bjorn was told he is not the overnight coordinator, and Core42 HLD/LLD documents go to Peter and Ryan org.
People: Ryan Smith, Bjorn Hovland, Nathan Blackham, Chris Wolford, Adam Jackson
Get Core42 a Kubernetes demo from the head of the Kubernetes team - in person in Abu Dhabi if his schedule allows
Oct 2, 2026 · strategy · medium70% confidence
Replying to Alex Trafton at Core42 after the meeting and lunch, Peter committed to pull in the head of CIQ Kubernetes team to give Alex a demo, noting he is in Abu Dhabi on Monday and may be able to give it in person.
People: Alex Trafton, Chris Wolford
Desktop V1 - a minimum-requirements section from Product, a December to first-week-of-January window, latest-only as the working assumption, and an accepted black eye
Oct 2, 2026 · strategy · high75% confidence
With Brady desktop document in hand (the design-plan condition from 10/1), Peter asked for a paragraph or redline at the top listing the absolute minimum requirements for V1, as aggressive and small as possible, and offered a window: something in December or the first week of January. Nathan working assumption is that the first drop is on latest only, not LTS; Peter asked Brady to capture it and call it out if wrong. Brady will schedule a separate LTS discussion since Everfox technically needs it. Peter accepts burning a bridge with one or two customers and taking a short black eye, fixing UI/UX afterward.
People: Brady Dibble, Brian Dawson, Nathan Blackham, Justin Haynes
Endorse forward-deployed Fuzzball AI outright; make observability a buy/partner/build discussion after the functionality is written down; ask for a written path to profitability on existing products
Oct 1, 2026 · strategy · medium60% confidence
Bjorn shared his 18-month roadmap direction (observability, then storage, then forward-deployed Fuzzball post-training on open-weight models - a low-touch Palantir) with no action needed. Peter loved the forward-deployed piece and wants everything it entails documented over the next 12 months; said he could not say anything smart on storage; said observability is worth a buy/partner/build discussion, starting with the functionality needed to tell the story, and pushed back that ingestion and persistence is fiddly work with six to nine months of bug-chasing. He asked Bjorn to write down which offerings, if any, are needed to reach profitability so CIQ can pull a no-more-investor-money lever if ever required, while saying there is value in not hitting that goal.
People: Bjorn Hovland
GDC term sheet - balance the background-IP clause so it never reads as claiming Google shared code, and approve the live-patch quote as written
Oct 1, 2026 · strategy · medium70% confidence
At the GDC Terms Sync, Bjorn set the main position: accept Google other changes (easy out, setup fees ending at 1.8M) in the spirit of partnership, and make it non-negotiable that the minimal kernel and CLK/FIPS 6.18 work are CIQ background IP, for the avoidance of doubt. Peter added the guardrail that Google will share live-patching code and Tissa will never agree that is CIQ IP, so the line must not read that way; he accepted Bjorn narrower wording, and Kelly added a counterweight that code shared by Google is Google IP. On the live-patch quote, Peter dismissed Nathan scoping comment (the cost is standing up kernel-signing infrastructure, not which kernel), deleted the comment, and approved the quote to ship.
People: Bjorn Hovland, Kelly Hall, Tissa Senevirathne, Nathan Blackham
Google live patching - set the near-zero-cost kernel flags now, nothing else before commercials, and treat the Tissa call as listen-not-commit
Oct 1, 2026 · strategy · medium77% confidence
Before the 9/30 live-patch call with Tissa, Peter told Nathan and Justin it was not a commit meeting but a listen-to-them meeting, with the contract worked through later. In the follow-up mpdm, Kelly asked if he was agreeing to do this part now before commercials; Peter said no, then corrected within seconds that he did not mind setting those flags now because it costs almost nothing. Nathan confirmed about 30 minutes to stage plus a few hours testing, riding on a normal kernel rather than a special one. Afterward Peter told Kelly and Bjorn that Alyssa and Tissa were clearly allies on getting this across the line.
People: Kelly Hall, Nathan Blackham, Justin Haynes, Tissa Senevirathne
Six-month push for CIQ to be a better steward of its open-source work beyond Rocky - Tim Pepper advises, with full transparency and a seat in the Stratum open-core call
Oct 1, 2026 · strategy · high79% confidence
At Eng Sync Peter introduced Tim Pepper, a contractor helping him think about CIQ positioning across all its open-source efforts (not just the RESF), including Warewulf ahead of the Warewulf offering launch. Tim will join Eng Sync from time to time; his engineering asks go through Product prioritization. Peter named it his big push for the next six months. In Slack, when Brian Dawson opened a task to decide the Stratum open-core vs open-source approach by 10/16, Peter said need to talk sooner and involve Tim; when Ryan omitted a sensitive RESF staffing detail from his OSS summary for Tim, Peter said there is no need to hide anything from Tim.
People: Tim Pepper, Brian Dawson, Chris Wolford, Ryan Smith, Greg Kurtzer, Jamie Brooks
Endura goes into RLC-H as a feature, not a standalone product - and no public noise until engineering has audited and stands behind it
Oct 1, 2026 · strategy · medium80% confidence
Bjorn proposed white-labeling Endura as a value-add offering early next year and bringing Eric Sheridan on in a product role. Peter objected only to a standalone product offering (another thing to sell and track, unclear Core42 needs it); when Bjorn reframed it as a feature white-labeled into RLC-H, Peter said all his objections go away. After Greg flagged it as a month-long vibe-coded project, Peter added that there is no Lindsay launch or public noise until engineering has its arms around it, even if hardening takes two months; the code may be a prototype to learn from and rewrite, or 95 percent keepable. No exclusivity; Bjorn pushes the Eric meeting while Greg examines his concern.
People: Bjorn Hovland, Greg Kurtzer, Eric Sheridan, Lindsay Aamodt
Desktop v1 ships at minimum scope - a concrete acceptance-test list to hold Nathan to, one desktop environment first, no date until the design plan exists
Oct 1, 2026 · strategy · high80% confidence
Peter asked Bjorn to have Brady add a section to the desktop doc listing the tests and validation that must pass before v1.0, made as small as possible, so there is a concrete set to hold Nathan to. When Bjorn asked for GNOME and COSMIC, Peter pushed for one environment first; Bjorn settled on whatever Everfox wants, defaulting to GNOME. Peter would take Brady draft immediately (perfect is the enemy of done) so engineering moves now, and declined to commit to Bjorn January target until he sees the design plan.
People: Bjorn Hovland, Brady Dibble, Nathan Blackham, Greg Kurtzer, Lindsay Aamodt
Joint with Bjorn: every Fuzzball deployment is white-glove for now - owned by Ryan org through workload verification, with FDE headcount added as needed
Sep 25, 2026 · strategy · medium70% confidence
Peter and Bjorn agreed (the night of 9/23) that for now every Fuzzball deployment is white-glove: install Fuzzball, get the customer workloads running, verify they are using resources through Fuzzball, show the reports they need, then walk away. It lands in Ryan org; his forward-deployed engineer starts on Core42 only, and Peter committed that when Ryan needs another FDE, he gets one. Peter communicated it to Ryan in their 1:1 on 9/24.
People: Ryan Smith, Bjorn Hovland
Price Google live patching at one headcount matched to the existing contract ratio - with a mandatory cutover to the CIQ patch pipeline once it is built
Sep 25, 2026 · strategy · medium78% confidence
Peter set the structure Kelly uses to price live patching for Google: budget one full headcount per year (steady state is about half a headcount, the rest is Google acting as accelerator for the CIQ build-out, not funding it all); match the existing contract headcount-to-cost ratio, ignoring the last discount; require that once Nathan live-patch infrastructure is built Google sits on top of it. Interim signing of Google-built patches includes breaking each patch down and ensuring its contents land in the next full kernel. Roughly the same price in both phases; CIQ runs slightly behind for the first months.
People: Kelly Hall, Nathan Blackham
No live-patch signing for Google until they pay - CIQ does no more goodwill engineering work ahead of a contract
Sep 25, 2026 · strategy · high80% confidence
Google (Tissa) is budgeting now, may try to fold live-patch signing into the 6.18 kernel amendment term sheet, and is trying to avoid paying CIQ for 2026. Peter told Kelly Hall to make clear, kindly, that CIQ does no signing until Google pays.
People: Kelly Hall, Nathan Blackham
Protect the inked Core42 deal - no Stratum and no new commitments until we have done discovery with the end customer
Sep 25, 2026 · strategy · high86% confidence
Bjorn wanted CIQ positioned to deploy Stratum (CIQ Kubernetes) on the first Core42 cluster after Core42 mentioned installing Kubernetes post-handoff. Peter walked him back: the question is not whether Stratum can be deployed (it can) but whether it meets the end customer need, which is unknowable until CIQ talks to that customer. Stratum is a child of RKE, not Rancher, and has never been deployed outside Wolford environment. Aggressive promising belongs in the sales motion; once a deal is inked, do not add commitments that could risk it. In the Core42 pre-deployment call Peter told Core42 CIQ has a Kubernetes offering but wants to understand exactly what the customer wants before recommending anything, and on Friday listed the discovery questions: what applications, why Kubernetes, how they interface with it, and what distribution experience their people have.
People: Bjorn Hovland, Chris Wolford, Adam Jackson, Brian Dawson, Jonathon Anderson, Ryan Smith
Unhold the security-engineer req and carry it to Greg in conversation rather than clicking approve
Sep 23, 2026 · strategy · medium83% confidence
Seven days after telling Bjorn to hold the security-engineer ask for a couple of months, Peter reopened it when Steve Wallace asked whether it was still on hold. His answer was depends on your definition of on hold - it is something we can start moving - and he specified the route rather than just the verdict: get the requisition in front of Peter first, and then Peter works to shepherd it through. His stated reason for not simply approving it is that Greg will kick it back if it arrives as a bare approval, so he will sit down and have a conversation with him instead. On learning the req was already sitting in his queue he said if it is waiting with me, it is in a great place. In the same conversation he asked Steve to send the IT headcount analysis, explicitly so he would have the numbers when advocating for the role.
People: Steve Wallace, Greg Kurtzer, Bjorn Hovland
No announcements until Engineering is confident on a delivery date - applied first to killing the Desktop announcement at SC26
Sep 23, 2026 · strategy · high84% confidence
Bjorn asked the Leadership Roundtable whether to announce Desktop at Supercomputing. Peter said no, and stated the rule rather than the verdict: not until we actually have designs and know what we are building and know we are going to get it. Peter confirmed in review that this is a general standing rule - CIQ does not do announcements until Engineering is confident on a delivery date - and that Desktop at SC26 is simply the first case it was applied to. December, which came up in the same exchange, is the ask from Product and Marketing rather than an Engineering estimate. Bjorn accepted immediately and substituted Stratum as the SC26 headline. Peter separately named Desktop designs as one of only two things he needs from Bjorn org, and Bjorn committed a newly hired designer to it.
People: Bjorn Hovland, Lindsay Aamodt, Nathan Blackham, Chris Baek
Documentation and training stay in Ryan org - development work does not belong there
Sep 23, 2026 · strategy · medium84% confidence
Ryan Smith raised that the breadth of what his org produces has outgrown the label customer engineering and asked what Peter sees the function as. Peter separated the container from the placement. On placement he gave a clear two-sided answer: documentation and training legitimately sit with Ryan org and he likes them there, and development work does not belong in that org. Gauntlet was the worked example - Peter thanked Ryan for building it, said that in a perfect world it lived under Justin and should have been built by Justin org, and said explicitly that he does not want the fact that Ryan built it to reshape Ryan world so that more of that happens. He also said forward-deployed engineering will likely grow to dwarf customer support in Ryan purview, and that the title would be VP of Engineering with owned scope explained separately - both of which he treated as secondary to the placement rule.
People: Ryan Smith, Justin Haynes, Brian Dawson
Affirm CIQ needs an OSPO and commit engineering time to upstream contribution as the entry ticket to new ecosystems
Sep 23, 2026 · strategy · high73% confidence
After spending time with Tim Pepper during the week, Peter settled a question Max Spevack had repeatedly challenged him on - why CIQ should have an OSPO office at all - and landed on the opposite of the challenge. He concluded that CIQ must have an OSPO, and that engineering has to spend materially more time upstream to be taken seriously in the ecosystems it wants to sell into: if CIQ is going to put out a Kubernetes offering, it had better be committing upstream to Kubernetes and be valued in that community. Tim gave him the magnitude - roughly a quarter of one percent of commits is enough to be seen and recognised as invested. Peter asked Tim to start building a map of where upstream activity buys the most impact and opens the doors CIQ needs, and said he will task engineers against it.
People: Tim Pepper, Bjorn Hovland, Ryan Smith
Take the customer breakage now at 100 customers rather than at 300 - but run it through Ryan and sales before it ships
Sep 23, 2026 · strategy · high88% confidence
Pushing Justin Haynes and Nathan Blackham on getting three to five times the throughput out of their orgs, Peter asked where the big blocks of time are. Justin said he could do something immediately that would dramatically speed things up but would break some customers. Peter answer: do you want to break customers now when we have 100 customers, or break customers in a year when we have 300? He then attached a condition - everyone sits down, Justin explains what he wants to change and what the fallout looks like, Ryan Smith and sales both understand it, and then it goes. He pre-warned Ryan in their 1:1 that this is coming.
People: Justin Haynes, Nathan Blackham, Ryan Smith
Adopt Bjorn no-US-eyes-only call as the operating assumption - and force the principle question to be settled separately from its effects
Sep 23, 2026 · strategy · high94% confidence
Bjorn declared in #department-heads that CIQ has no contractual US-eyes-only obligations, that undocumented verbal commitments are not valid, that any future US-eyes-only deals route through CIQ Federal, and that the call and its risk sit with him. Ryan Smith pushed back that customers were given verbal commitments and should be spoken to first. Peter took two positions: he has no horse in the race on whether CIQ supports eyes-only obligations and a huge horse in the race that everyone marches with the same constraints against the same goals; and that whoever meets on it must COMPLETELY separate are we agreeing to act as if we have no US eyes only obligations from what are we doing. Pending that meeting he told the org he will act as if the answer to the first is no until told otherwise, and warned Dave Dickerson not to let CIQ Federal business-model decisions be made that force Bjorn call to change.
People: Bjorn Hovland, Ryan Smith, Dave Dickerson, Ramesh Srinivasan
Tell Bjorn the Wallace org is not over-staffed and may still need to grow - and hold the security-engineer ask for a couple of months
Sep 16, 2026 · strategy · medium73% confidence
Bjorn asked Peter two deliberately separated questions: is Steve org rightly sized, and is Steve the right person to lead it. On sizing Peter answered that it is rightly sized, meaning it does not need to get smaller - he was ruling out shrinking, not ruling out growth. He brought numbers to the answer: ticket volume, growth in volume, and average life of tickets, which show the team getting swamped. He noted that Karl may help once he is in, spending time on the Mother Brain and Atlas work and also automating some things in that area, but this was named as possible relief rather than as a plan that removes the need for headcount - the org may also need to grow. Peter then flagged that at some point, and by someday he meant the next couple of months, he wants to talk to Bjorn and Greg about a security engineer under Steve again.
People: Bjorn Hovland, Steve Wallace, Karl Lowenbjer
Refuse to build the non-OS Core42 work on top of Ubuntu - getting moving is fine, doing the work entrenches the competitor
Sep 16, 2026 · strategy · high81% confidence
Ahead of the Sep 22 Alex meeting in LA, Bjorn argued for starting the Core42 HLD items that are not gated on the operating system, on the reasoning that the deeper CIQ is embedded the more leverage it has to push Rocky through certification. Peter agreed with the aim and refused the method. He separated getting moving from doing the technical work: most of the boxes on that list get built into and integrated with the OS itself, so building them now would be doing the wiring to embed Ubuntu with Core42 rather than embedding CIQ. He also reclassified the expanded scope as SOW3 rather than SOW2, on the grounds that an extra step - getting Rocky in everywhere - has been inserted ahead of it, and told Bjorn that what he wants out of the Alex meeting is a handshake on the gates to swap Ubuntu for Rocky: certification, an application test-and-certify pass, a swap plan, a timeline and a project plan. He accepted Adam Jackson two-section meeting structure and Bjorn sequencing, agreeing to open on what CIQ can do for Alex, then take ten minutes on the removal gates. In the same exchange, after Bjorn reacted to his absolutes, Peter located the fix in his own framing rather than in the position - leave the black and white statements out, make no statement about can or cannot, just walk through the gate.
People: Bjorn Hovland, Adam Jackson, Michael Shinn
Justify the internal LLM fleet on Fuzzball dogfooding rather than cost savings - fund it even at parity
Sep 11, 2026 · strategy · medium67% confidence
Brady reported the internal LLM fleet is now pushing billions of tokens, that Sultan and other engineers are running real work through it, and that he is hitting concurrency caps on current hardware and queuing for Grace Hopper cycles. Brian reframed the value as opportunity unlock - uncapped long-running jobs - rather than spend reduction. Peter added a third justification and placed it above both: what he gets out of it is more Fuzzball dogfooding plus organisational learning about what can be run internally, and he said he would be interested even if it saved no dollars, and would leverage what Brady built anywhere it reaches output parity even if it costs more.
People: Brady Dibble, Brian Dawson
Ignore AMD until someone escalates - and decline to have an opinion on whether to confront them
Sep 11, 2026 · strategy · medium76% confidence
Brady reported that Whitney at AMD is not answering his emails, is talking only to Greg, and is not specific about what she is asking for, and that the lack of a program cadence is becoming a blocker. Peter said his statement to Greg is that he will ignore AMD completely until somebody tells him he cannot. When Brian argued that someone should tell AMD they are a bad partner, Peter said he does not mind that happening but explicitly declined to hold an opinion on it, naming it a company strategic question and pointing Brian at Bjorn - while volunteering his read that Bjorn will agree with Brian on the diagnosis.
People: Brady Dibble, Brian Dawson, Greg Kurtzer, Bjorn Hovland
Cap Binarly at validation-size investment - portfolio status buys no lower evidentiary bar
Sep 11, 2026 · strategy · high78% confidence
In the weekly sync, Brady reported Binarly is not yet of value and that he is deliberately keeping engineer involvement at zero, framing the current effort as keeping investors happy about supporting the sister company. Brian asked Peter to expand on his scepticism. Peter set the ceiling explicitly: invest enough, as long as it is small, to validate their claims the same way CIQ would if Binarly were not a portfolio company. If the claims hold, proceed. If not, get on the phone with Joel and tell him he is wasting money - and treat that as a deliverable to the portfolio rather than a failure. He broadened the scope from Brady design-partner commitment to any technical investment by anyone, and closed by saying he is not in a position to make that CIQ official position - it is what he hopes CIQ does.
People: Brady Dibble, Brian Dawson, Bjorn Hovland
Make the bleeding-edge driver the RLC-AI default over Dawson stability objection - explicitly a 3 to 6 month posture
Sep 11, 2026 · strategy · medium88% confidence
In the weekly sync with Brian Dawson and Brady Dibble, Brady presented the product stance that bleeding-edge drivers should be available and compiled but never the default image. Peter pushed directly against it for RLC-AI: the enterprise-stability argument is correct at scale but CIQ has effectively zero RLC-AI customers in production, so the first-touch evaluation experience should be the most aggressive configuration available. He closed by telling Dawson that Dawson is right for the long tail of the product and that Peter may well change his mind in a year, but that this is the posture for now.
People: Brian Dawson, Brady Dibble, Bjorn Hovland
Constrain the AMD commitment to lab validation on an MI300 rather than promising CIQ will acquire one
Sep 11, 2026 · strategy · medium82% confidence
In the group DM with Bjorn Hovland and Adam Jackson on Sept 9, after Adam reported progress on the AMD motion, Peter cut back what could be promised. He told Adam to be careful about promising CIQ will acquire MI300s, allowed the exception that if Adam actually has one in hand from a contact then fine, and said that otherwise he does not think CIQ could get one in the timeline that matters. He substituted the commitment CIQ can keep: telling AMD that CIQ will run validations on a 300 is fine, because he is confident Scott Shinn can get CIQ test access in AMD own lab. He bracketed the correction with support, telling Adam the work is awesome and to let him know how Engineering can support. In the same thread he raised the harder problem nobody had asked about - that AMD will not leave themselves partly on Rocky and partly on Ubuntu, so CIQ needs to get into the weeds on what a cutover looks like and make sure plans are in place, or AMD will keep deploying Ubuntu because their setup and management infrastructure is all designed and tested for it.
People: Adam Jackson, Bjorn Hovland, Scott Shinn
Cover the OpenELA TSC seat gap personally with Nathan and Leigh, and put Tim Pepper on the RESF relationship question
Sep 11, 2026 · strategy · medium88% confidence
Sarah Almaraz relayed Arthur Tyde concern in #ea-team that CIQ holds two OpenELA TSC seats assigned to Nathan Blackham and Damen Knight, neither had been participating, and SUSE and Oracle were showing up consistently while CIQ as a founding member was not represented. Arthur asked for three things before the Sept 10 call: confirm Nathan and Damen or name replacements, get a PR submitted for OpenELA issue 36 with confirmed prod access, and name one CIQ engineer to own the import queue. Peter answered with the attendance roster - Myself, Nathan, and Leigh. Separately in the window he told Nathan he has Tim Pepper on as a contractor to look at CIQ relationship with the RESF and how CIQ grows community there, described the role as an OSPO advisor sort of guy here on a contract, asked Nathan for pointers to docs on unifying build infrastructure, and told Nathan to talk to Tim about the structure of his team, how he interfaces with the RESF, and how he wants to evolve that interface. Peter also forwarded Arthur OpenELA TSC threads to Tim Pepper directly.
People: Sarah Almaraz, Arthur Tyde, Nathan Blackham, Damen Knight, Tim Pepper, Leigh Hennig, Greg Kurtzer
Own the Google GDC answer personally, commit nothing to Google, and require Hassan to put the ask in email
Sep 11, 2026 · strategy · high87% confidence
In the group DM with Greg Kurtzer, Bjorn Hovland and Brady Dibble, asked who owns a Google GDC question, Peter answered that the answer to the question specifically is Me, that CIQ can ask, but that CIQ cannot commit to Google. He then added a paper-trail condition: get Hassan to send the request to Peter in email, cc-ing Brady and Bjorn, because Peter will need that.
People: Greg Kurtzer, Bjorn Hovland, Brady Dibble, Hassan
Refuse to guarantee Oct 5 for Core42 if CIQ is deploying Ubuntu - give a likely range unless the customer demands a guarantee
Sep 11, 2026 · strategy · high95% confidence
Asked by Adam Jackson in #core42-build-and-deploy whether CIQ could commit to an Oct 5 completion starting Sept 18, Peter answered no for the full-Ubuntu-deployment scope: there is absolutely a chance CIQ would hit it, but CIQ cannot guarantee it. He then separated the scopes - if it is just Fuzzball, and Ubuntu is already stood up on the racks and networked, and CIQ gets access Sept 18, then absolutely CIQ could hit that date. He gave the rule for how to answer the customer: be VERY careful about guarantees in a new environment and an OS that is not ours, because a guarantee puts CIQ in a position to lose future business when this is the first time CIQ is doing this; if Core42 MUST have a guarantee that is one thing, but if they only want a likely range then give the range and do not make an unforced error. He then asked the four scoping questions that decide which scope applies - is Ubuntu already installed, is networking already set up, is there a provisioning machine available for ELM, and exactly how many machines.
People: Adam Jackson, Nathan Blackham, Michael Shinn, Scott Shinn, Ryan Smith, Brian Dawson, Bjorn Hovland
Cap the Spark benchmark chase at one or two wins - the deliverable is bits in RLC-AI on Portal, not a leaderboard listing
Sep 11, 2026 · strategy · medium94% confidence
Across four channels Peter set the scope of the NVIDIA Spark benchmark work ahead of the Tuesday announcement. To Nathan Blackham and Brett Mastbergen he said not to spend too much time there, that all CIQ really needs is one test to point to, two is awesome, more is not necessarily better, and that after one or two what is actually needed is the right bits baked into RLC-AI and available on Portal for download, at which point CIQ can declare victory. He also directed benchmark selection by relative rather than absolute result - pick whichever benchmark showcases Rocky best against the other distros on the leaderboard and can produce results quickly, because this is not about the raw number. In the group DM with Brian Dawson, Bjorn Hovland and Lindsay Aamodt he corrected the plan: the leaderboard is third party, not controlled by NVIDIA, CIQ cannot guarantee any posting there by any date, so make plans that involve self-reported benchmarks. With Lindsay and Bjorn he put the third-party publication odds at about fifty percent while calling confidence in CIQ own benchmarks high.
People: Nathan Blackham, Brett Mastbergen, Bjorn Hovland, Lindsay Aamodt, Brian Dawson, Max Spevack